December 19, 2002

Vol. 13, No. 23

The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the Department of Public Relations. News of campus interest should be sent to
Ed Delaney, 412-268-1609 (ed47@andrew.cmu.edu) or Bruce Gerson, 412-268-1613 (bg02@andrew.cmu.edu). The newsletter is available on the official.cmu-news and cmu.misc.news bulletin boards.

Last year's editions are available online.

Previous editions are available online.

Stefano Falconi, director of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will become Carnegie Mellon's vice president for administration and chief financial officer, effective Jan. 1.

—"We are extremely pleased to have Stefano join us at Carnegie Mellon," said President Jared L. Cohon. "His experience leading the budget and strategic financial planning processes at the university level, his skills, work ethic and international background match nicely with the university's needs and interests."

—Falconi succeeds Jeff Bolton, who left Carnegie Mellon last July to become chief financial officer at the Mayo Foundation in Rochester, Minn.

—Falconi joined MIT in 1996. As director of finance he was responsible for developing and implementing MIT's strategic financial planning, budgeting and capital planning processes.

—Prior to joining MIT, Falconi had a distinguished career at Harvard University, where he held several positions in the sponsored research accounting, federal compliance and finance areas.

—Falconi holds a doctorate in law, with highest honors, from the University of Padua in his native Italy, and an MBA with honors from the Harvard School of Business Administration, with a concentration in corporate finance. He practiced corporate law for seven years in Italy prior to moving to the United States.

—He is married with two daughters, Alessandra, 8, and Francesca, 4.

"LEMIEUX" SHOWS PLANETS MAY FORM FASTER THAN SCIENTISTS THOUGHT

Taking advantage of the computing capability of LeMieux, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's terascale system, scientists have determined that large, Jupiter-like planets-similar to those observed outside Earth's solar system- can form in dramatically shorter periods of time than previously thought.

—The findings, published in SCIENCE (Nov. 29), challenge accepted thinking that it takes millions of years for such planets to form from the pancake-shaped nebula of gas and dust swirling around young stars. Using LeMieux, the most powerful system in the United States committed to public research, researchers carried out a series of planet formation simulations. They were able to include roughly 10 times more detail than previous similar work, and this increase led directly to the new findings.

—Established with an August 2000 grant from the National Science Foundation, LeMieux comprises more than 3,000 Compaq Alpha EV68 processors, providing more than six teraflops (six trillion calculations a second) of computational capability to U.S. engineers and scientists. Further information: official.cmu-news, Dec. 12.

STUDENTS HIBSHMAN AND BRADY POST ATHLETIC ACHIEVEMENTS

Senior Adam Hibshman, a midfielder on the men's soccer team, has been named first team All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Athletic Association and Adidas. He led the Tartans to a 16-0 overall record, the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship and their fourth NCAA appearance in school history this season. The Myerstown, Pa., native is the first Carnegie Mellon athlete (male or female) to be named the UAA Player of the Year for three consecutive seasons.

—Erin Brady, a forward on the women's basketball team, scored her 1,000th career point on Dec. 11, when the Tartans defeated Allegheny College, 61-45. Brady is the Tartans' leading scorer with 15.1 points per game. Earlier this season, she was named to the All-Tournament team in the Carnegie Mellon Tip-Off Tournament. Last season, Brady set Carnegie Mellon's season record for free throw percentage (84.2%) and was the University Athletic Association's fourth-leading scorer with 13 points per game. In 2000-2001, she set the school season record for blocked shots with 65.

STUDENTS DEVELOPING WEB SITE TO HELP TISSUE ENGINEERING COMPANIES

Carnegie Mellon students are developing a new Web site to help tissue engineering companies navigate the complex U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory process. Under the direction of Civil Engineering Professor Mitch Small, graduate and undergraduate students from Engineering and Public Policy, Social and Decision Sciences, and the Heinz School are creating models to help companies understand how to classify products when applying for FDA approval, which can take years. According to the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association, the average development time for getting a drug to market is 15 years with a cost of more than $800 million. Further information: www.cmu.edu/PR/press_releases/021204_fdaapp.html

PERSONAL MENTION

—The Research Administrators Certification Council, the national research administrator credentialing organization, has announced that the following Carnegie Mellon administrators have successfully completed all requirements for designation as Certified Research Administrator: Liz Fox, College of Fine Arts; Margaret Kinsky, Psychology; Leslie Levine, Statistics; Denise Murrin Macey, Engineering & Public Policy; Sharon McCarl, Mellon College of Science; Kathi McShane, Mathematical Sciences; AnnMarie Zanger, School of Computer Science. They join the ranks of 350 professionals nationally who have achieved this distinction.

—Chris Brussalis, adjunct professor of management and policy at the Heinz School and president and CEO of The Hill Group, Inc., a national management consulting firm based in Pittsburgh, was recently elected to the board of the American Society for Competitiveness and Leadership Pittsburgh.

—Omar Ghatta, professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and former CEE students Volkan Akcelik and George Biros, received the high-performance computing SC2002 conference's Best Technical Paper Award for "Parallel Multiscale Gauss-Newton-Krylov Methods For Inverse Wave Propagation." Using their own algorithm, they solved a synthetic inverse wave propagation problem though a pelvic bone geometry involving 2.1 million inversion parameters in three hours on 256 parallel processors.

—A paper by Heinz School faculty members Karen Clay, Ramayya Krishnan and Michael Smith, and Heinz School doctoral student Atip Asvanund has been selected runner-up for Best Research Paper by the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Using an analytical model, the researchers explored technical solutions to the congestion problems of networks. A key finding of the paper is that in large network sizes, additional users bring almost nothing in the way of new content, but add significantly to network congestion. The researchers attended the ICIS conference in Barcelona, Dec. 15-18, where Asvanund presented their findings.

—Lenore Blum, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, will receive a Women of Distinction award in math and technology from the Girl Scouts of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Blum is well known for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in mathematics and scientific fields.

—Gregory S. Rohrer, the William W. Mullins Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has been appointed a Fellow of the American Ceramics Society-the highest honor given to a member of the society.

—The latest tragi-comic chamber operas of Leonardo Balada, professor of composition at the School of Music, have been released on Naxos Records. The CD, titled "Hangman, Hangman!" and "The Town of Greed," is performed by the Carnegie Mellon Opera Theater with guest singers, the Pittsburgh Camerata and Carnegie Mellonšs Contemporary Ensemble. Guest Irish conductor, Colman Pearce, conducts the performances.

NEWS BRIEFS

—Credit Union holiday schedule: Closed Tuesday, Dec. 24 and Wednesday, Dec. 25. Closed Tuesday. Dec. 31 and Wednesday, Jan. 1. Open 9 a.m. - noon, Thursday, Dec. 26 and Friday Dec. 27. Open 9 a.m. - 1 p.m., Monday, Dec. 30.

—The East Campus Garage will be closed from 10:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 23, through 11:30 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 1. Be certain to make the necessary arrangements to have your vehicle out of the garage before it closes. Further information: official.cmu-news, Dec. 16.

—December paychecks will be issued on Friday, Dec. 20.

THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE NEWSLETTER WILL BE PUBLISHED ON JAN. 9

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